What US sitcoms such as Family Guy and The Simpsons tell us about America
today

Homer Simpson is electoral gold dust. White, male and blue-collar, the "donut"-obsessed father of three is the kind of voter that often swings American elections. Although he has often been taken for a Republican, in 2008 he joined millions of other working-class whites in pulling the lever for Barack Obama – helping the Democrats capture states such as Ohio and Indiana. But this year, Homer has confounded expectations by voting for Mitt Romney.

In a promo for the latest series of The Simpsons, Homer enters a polling booth and mulls over the options. He doesn’t like the Obamas because of First Lady Michelle’s anti-obesity campaign (“I already got one wife telling me to eat healthy”), so he goes for Mitt instead. The voting machine then reveals Romney’s tax records, which show that the multi-millionaire Republican got a tax deduction for a “personality implant”, and that the government actually pays him taxes. Homer threatens to tell the press and the machine opens up and sucks him inside. We later see that he has been “outsourced” to a flag-making factory in China.

The Simpsons skit on Obama v Romney is part of a grand tradition of US sitcoms commenting on politics. While we Brits have political satires such as The Thick of It or Yes Minister, we don’t expect to see characters in standard, family-orientated shows making gags about David Cameron or Ed Miliband. Yet in America, sitcom writers will happily plunder politics for material. With the ratings of many news shows plummeting, and those of sitcoms on the up, comedies offer an alternative barometer of public opinion. They reveal a country that’s neither as straightforwardly liberal nor conservative as the presidential election suggests.

US sitcoms are written in a similar way to our soaps: week-by-week, by a team of writers over the course of a broadcast season that can last up to six months. The flexibility this lends can encourage writers to use headlines for inspiration.

The political content of US sitcoms has varied over time. In the Seventies, shows such as All in the Family or Maude tackled abortion, gay rights and racial discrimination, and always with a liberal slant. Conservatism made a comeback in the Eighties, with writers sometimes using their shows to promote the moral causes of the day. One episode of Diff’rent Strokes was graced by Nancy Reagan, who took time out of her schedule as First Lady to warn viewers of the evils of drugs.

As American politics got hotter and more fractured, TV producers tried to avoid storylines that would alienate potential viewers. The Simpsons, which started in 1989, was drawn into electoral politics by accident. Although it’s now regarded as an all-American family favourite, the show was initially attacked by conservatives who thought it encouraged laziness, cynicism and disrespect for elders among the young.

In 1992, the Republican President George HW Bush said in a speech to the National Religious Broadcasters, “We need a nation closer to The Waltons than The Simpsons” – referring to the popular TV drama about a simple, wholesome, Depression-era farm family. Three days later, The Simpsons rolled out an episode in which Bart responds, “We’re just like the Waltons! We’re praying for an end to the Depression, too!”

Since the Nineties, animated sitcoms have been the most willing to address politics head on. That’s partly because cartoon characters can do and say things that live-action actors can’t. But animated sitcoms also tend to start out as cult hits that build a following among demographics with distinct political identities.

Family Guy, which is about a blue-collar family living in Rhode Island, pokes fun at conservatives on behalf of its young, liberal audience. In one episode, teenager Chris Griffin is invited by a girl he has a crush on to attend a Young Republicans social. He asks what they do there and she says, “We help people who already have the means to help themselves.”

By contrast, South Park has generated a more conservative philosophy, called South Park Libertarianism. Although its generous helpings of swearing, sex and violence make it unattractive to religious conservatives, its bigger target is politically correct liberalism. One episode attacks the anti-smoking lobby (staffed by vampires), and another claims that environmentalists are destroying the ozone layer by releasing toxic levels of “smug” into the atmosphere.

For live action sitcoms, politics comes in the subtler form of cultural comment. This season’s shows feature more gay people than at any other time in history. The trend started in 1997, when the comedian Ellen DeGeneres came out on her sitcom, Ellen. At the time, half of Americans still believed that gay sex should be a crime. But since then, attitudes have mellowed in parallel to sitcoms becoming more boldly pro-gay. When Vice President Joe Biden endorsed gay marriage rights in 2012, he cited the sitcom Will and Grace – which features a leading gay character – as one of the things that had changed the attitudes of voters towards homosexuality.

Whether sitcoms accentuate or simply imitate change is up for debate. But, just like UK soaps, their popularity depends on remaining contemporary. At present, the biggest sitcom hit in the US is Modern Family. It sounds as if it was scripted by a politically correct social worker. It features three families: a husband and wife with three kids, an interracial, cross-generational couple and a gay couple raising a child. However, it has a demographic appeal that defies political stereotypes. Both presidential candidates have said it’s their favourite show and Republicans are slightly more likely to watch it than Democrats.

The secret of this liberal Trojan horse is that it sells socially progressive ideas in a conservative packaging. The families go to church (as do nearly half of all Americans) and regularly learn Eighties-style moral lessons about hard work and fidelity. But they also reflect how the American family is evolving from a heterosexual, all-white norm to something more diverse and tolerant.

Today, one in four gay couples is raising a baby and one in seven new marriages is inter-racial. So are sitcom writers the vanguard of a liberal army of social reformers? Yes and no. Programme-makers know that there are some subjects the American people won’t watch: abortion, teenage pregnancy and atheism rarely make it to prime time. And political balance is always respected.

The New Normal is about two gay dads raising a baby through a surrogate, and the question of whether they should or could get married inevitably leads to some reflection on the 2012 presidential election. But while the show clearly sympathises with the pro-gay marriage Democrats, the terror of losing Republican viewers ensures that it includes plenty of satire of liberal hypocrisy. When, in a recent episode, a conservative character challenges the gay couple to admit that they don’t actually have any black friends, they’re desperate to prove her wrong. Unable to find one, they hire a black waiter for the day to play the part.

All of which might explain why Homer Simpson voted for Mitt Romney only four years after voting for Barack Obama. Of all the animated sitcoms, The Simpsons is the most aware of its family-friendly, national treasure status, so it steers clear of partisan bias. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be sharp.

In one episode, we get a glimpse of the party conventions. At the Republican event, the signs read: “We want what’s worst for everyone!” and “We’re just evil!” The banners at the Democratic convention read: “We hate life and ourselves!” and “We can’t govern!” That’s the choice that Americans face – and it ain’t always funny.